1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to seal rings used to lock watt-hour electrical meters installed into meter sockets of electrical meter bases. The seal ring of this disclosure is particulary directed towards a thermoplastic, one-piece locking and tamper resistant seal ring.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Meter seal rings are commonly used to retain watt-hour electrical meters affixed in place in meter sockets. Although the meters are retained fairly securely against falling out of the meter base simply by the tight fit of the electrical tabs on the back of the meter stabbed into the jaws of the meter socket, seal rings do add a measure of insurance against the meter from falling out of the socket or becoming loose and leading to damaging electrical arcing. Meter seal rings, however, are primarily used to lock the meter onto the flange of the meter base to prohibit unauthorized individuals from removing the meter from the meter socket. Removal of the meter by unauthorized and untrained individuals on rare occasion can lead to shocks, eye and equipment damaging arcing. However, the main problem is removal of the meter by unauthorized persons with the intent to steal electricity from the power company. An electrical watt-hour meter installed properly in a meter base measures and records the amount of power consumed, with the recorded consumption usually read by a power company employee at the end of each month prior to billing the consumer. By simply pulling the meter out of the meter socket of the meter base, and reinstalling the meter upside down in the meter socket, the electricity still flows through the meter and out the load side for use by the consumer, however, the meter can run in reverse in this inverted position, subtracting already recorded consumption. The typical thief will then invert the meter in the socket shortly before the end of the month prior to the arrival of the meter reader. In this manner, a thief may have actually used 100 kilo-watts that month, and yet, when the meter reader reads the recorded consumption, the meter shows significantly less power used than was actually consumed. Many power companies estimate financial losses due to this type of thievery to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Other methods are commonly being used to steal power, such as by jumping with conductors of some type across the load side to the line side conductors behind the meter in the meter socket. In any case, the vast majority of these methods involve the removal of the meter from the meter socket. In view of the above facts, meter seal rings have been designed to either lock or accept locks to prohibit removal of the watt-hour meter from the meter socket by unauthorized persons.
A patent search was conducted at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to examine past art meter seal rings, particulary seal rings specifically structured to be tamper resistant and having locking structures built onto the seal ring itself. Although there are many past art seal rings in use which are structured with lockable or locking mechanisms, the vast majority of these require keys to lock and unlock, and appear to have many parts to both manufacture and assemble, making the seal rings quite expensive to manufacture and purchase, and inconvenient to use. A seal ring described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,149,741, issued Apr. 17, 1979 to G.W. Lipscomb et al, teaches a one time use locking meter seal ring. The Lipscomb seal ring includes a permanent locking assembly affixed to the seal ring. The Lipscomb locking mechanism once locked can only be unlocked by breaking or cutting a portion of the lock. The Lipscomb lock is made of a plurality of separately manufactured parts of various materials, primarily metals, which are then apparently assembled at a factory. Due to the structuring of the Lipscomb locking mechanism, the seal ring with attached locking mechanism must in all likelihood be relatively expensive to manufacture and therefore expensive to purchase, which could be the reason I could not find the device available in the market place or in any sales catalog. Since the Lipscomb seal ring is a one time use device, appears expensive to manufacture and purchase due to many parts needing to be separately manufactured and assembled, it does not seem to be a feasible solution to the problem.